On Hall of Fame Voting Itself
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . The Baseball Writers Association of America has “held the exclusive voting privilege to consider recently retired players for the National Baseball Hall of Fame” says the Hall’s Website.
. . . The notorious “character clause” was enacted by the BBWAA in 1945. The Hall’s Website says, “Rule applies to how the game was played on the field, more so than character off the field.”
. . . The five percent rule—candidates remaining on the following year’s Hall ballot if they achieve five percent or more of the BBWAA vote—was enacted in 1979.
Leading Off
Hall of Fame Voters Got it Right This Year, But . . .
By Mark Kolier
The biggest news following the announcement of the 2025 Hall of Fame inductees was that first-timer Ichiro Suzuki was not a unanimous choice. When Hall president Josh Ravich was immediately asked if it was unanimous he was almost sheepish in admitting that Ichiro wasn’t.
The BBWAA writer/voter in question has not come forward to ‘own’ their “no” vote. That was also the case in 2020 when Derek Jeter fell one vote short of being a unanimous selection, something that only his teammate Mariano Rivera has been able to achieve.
What surprised me more than a little was how much it appeared to bother Ichiro. Usually stoic, and not because he’s Japanese, Ichiro tongue-in-cheek suggested out loud that he and that voter have a drink together. Wait, Ichiro drinks? Maybe that was the biggest news regarding this year’s Hall of Fame vote!
Billy Wagner got in at the eleventh hour since it was his final appearance on the ballot as a player. I’ve written about Wagner and have nothing else to add except for, finally! CC Sabathia flew in as a first-time ballot inductee. It’s not that I don’t feel Sabathia is a bona-fide Hall of Famer, but first ballot was something I personally did not expect since Hall voters are too often persnickety.
So let’s talk about first-ballot HOF status
So many of the greatest players in baseball history have missed being first ballot Hall-of-Famers. For this reason alone, that status does not have much intrigue or interest for me. Cy Young, Rogers Hornsby, Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, and Yogi Berra (to name a few) were not elected in their first year of eligibility.
So why is it so important to be a first ballot Hall of Famer? The answer is simple. The players think it’s important! But for fans it shouldn’t be so important. In is in whenever it happens, and Wagner had to wait ten agonizing years to finally gain induction and his reaction was both poignant and emotional. Tenth ballot is cool too.
On our podcast this week we were joined by The Athletic writer Daniel Brown to discuss his votes this year. He too was aggravated by the one unnamed voter that passed on voting for Ichiro. Last week I saw one non-voter mention that had he a vote for the HOF, he would also not have voted for Ichiro since Ichiro was a lock and there were ten other players he wished to recognize as Hall-worthy. The idea seemed to be that keeping Dustin Pedroia on the ballot for another year (hypothetically) was more important than a vote for Ichiro.
It’s an unusual stance, but at least if you are voting for ten already it’s an argument. However, it’s an indication that while the BBWA writers mostly got it right this year, there’s something very wrong with the entire voting process. The voters got it right this year, and Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran will be the top candidates to make it next year. But they’re not guaranteed, and we may have zero Hall of Famers elected in 2026. Ugh.
Why not vote for as many candidates as you want?
Ten years ago in 2015, the Hall of Fame reduced the numbers of years a player could be on a HOF ballot from fifteen to the current ten years. At that time, of the 115 players previously elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA, 102 were voted in within their first 10 years on the ballot, while only 13 needed those extra five years. Jim Rice attained the Hall in his 15th year in 2009 and Bert Blyleven in his 14th year in 2011.
Limiting the number of players that can be voted for to ten is too restrictive. As members of the IBWAA, myself and numerous writers have ballots for the Hall of Fame, however ceremonial. But we allow twelve names to be included, and even those two extra slots make a difference.
Granted: I am a ‘big Hall’ guy, and I feel that so much about Hall voting could be cleaned up if thirty or more players who were unfairly passed over (Kenny Lofton, Lou Whitaker, etc.,) were inducted, and we could argue about Torii Hunter and Felix Hernandez with less noise in the background.
We talked with Brown about the agony of waiting to learn if the player got in or not. If the player just fell short–like Wagner for nine years, or Jim Rice for fourteen years, you must answer media questions about how you are feeling and what it might mean to you. Every single year. Ugh.
My son Gordon posed the idea that perhaps in year one all a player needs to do to remain on the ballot is receive one vote. Then in year two and beyond some percentage stipulations could be added—not necessarily five percent.
One other thing of interest from our conversation with Dan was when we talked about football. Since it was the same day as the NFC championship game, he noted that he felt Opening Day and April represented the best baseball on the calendar even over the World Series. I believe what he meant was the anticipation of the coming season, the opportunity for unheralded teams to surprise and delight, makes that first month so exciting with possibilities and fun!
Baseball also signifies the arrival of spring and the portent of summer. Football is about the playoffs and run to the Super Bowl, and the opening of the NFL season shows the way to autumn and winter and feels very different. This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the NFL playoffs this year but, man, I can hardly wait for April!
Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com. Mark can be reached on x @almostcoop and almostcooperstown@gmail.com.
Extra Innings
Three players with postseason heroics on their resumes will be among the first-time eligibles on the 2025 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot.
Edwin Encarnación—When Orioles manager Buck Showalter failed to have his best relief pitcher Zach Britton ready, in the bottom of the tenth of the 2016 American League wild card game, Encarnación faced lesser arm Ubaldo Jimenez and made the Orioles pay through their noses. He hit a game-winning three-run homer, sending the Blue Jays to the American League division series.
Daniel Murphy—Murphy electrified New York and baseball whole when he hammered home runs in six straight games for the Mets between the 2015 National League division series and National League Championship Series. Those homers broke a team record for most postseason homers (Hall of Famer Mike Piazza) and a major league record for homers in consecutive postseason games. (Carlos Beltrán, in five such games, as a 2004 Houston Astro.)
Howie Kendrick—During the Nationals’ improbable 2019 World Series title run, Kendrick hit the second extra-innings postseason grand slam in MLB history. (Game Five, NLDS.) Then, he hit what proved the game-winning two-run homer in the top of the seventh in Game Seven of the World Series. (The first extra-innings postseason salami: Nelson Cruz, Rangers, winning Game Two, 2011 ALCS.)
Mark,
Good article. If taking away limits for total boxes that a voter can check each year on the ballot meant that each voter puts the players they truly believe deserve to be in the Hall right away, then I'm all for it.
However, the idea of voting for someone just to keep him on the ballot when, in actuality, that voter doesn't truly believe he's a bonafide HOFer but deserves to be strung along for a few more years just because he was good is where it gets iffy. Any player getting the minimum five percent of votes in the first year just to stay eligible is likely not a legit Hall of Famer.
There's a reason 95% said no. In 10 years, if that same 5% player ends up with 75%, I think that makes the voters look bad. What changed? The stats didn't. The idea of needing 10 years to decide is absurd, no matter what new information and statistics might be created by sites like Fangraphs to justify a player's enshrinement suddenly.
Final thought. Let the world see who voted for who. It's sad to think only one player, a reliever of all positions, is the only unanimous inductee in history. There's something wrong with that.